MODEL YACHTS ■

Above: Classic Js and 12s sail in Newport, Rhode Island. radios, and I thought, surely model boats can have Center: A peaceful moment between a boy and his toy spinnakers.” Whether you want a strict one-design class, a loose one- their boats are headed for the wall just watch them run. design class, or a development class, you have choices. Model sailing is as rich and diverse as the world of sailing Want to sail through a frozen winter? Take a lesson from itself. Northern California veteran Karl Tulp recalls, “When I David Goebel up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the sold my IOD, people at the yacht club pooh- local club sails at an indoor swimming Matthew Cohen (both above) poohed me for buying a toy boat. They pool with fans for power. hushed a bit when [San Francisco Bay guru] Hank Easom bought one, and when [Sol- Radio-control magic ing silver-medal crew] Will Baylis bought two, With today’s radio-control (RC) they shut up.” equipment you can launch a model Some people get into models for the almost anywhere and be confident about aesthetic allure. Some people are born getting it back, providing the receiver is tinkerers; others get in for the turned on. Hello? Don’t think you’d be competition or to drill on tactics. Others the first to make that mistake. RC also PondPond lifelife just like the social scene. Competitive makes it possible to sail in fleets, under radio-controlled sailing is the mainstay. the Racing Rules of Sailing, with timed The author (at right, above) sailing with the ODOM fleet at Speed and tactics rule the Marin County Civic Center, California, and with his borrowed For a few hundred bucks you can buy an starts and standard courses. In the old boat (inset) off-the-shelf hobby-shop boat and find days, free-sail launch-and-pray impassioned world of model good one-design action if you have a competition was mostly one-on-one, to touched the control, and wham. My boat cut hard to local fleet. Step up to not quite a minimize collisions. With RC more sailing, but ducks have the starboard and slammed the boat next door. Left-right takes thousand and you can have something people can play. right of way on a weird dimension when you’re thinking in reverse (it’s (inset) Onne van der Wal very cool, or if you’re up for a In an RC race, starts are counted down not as though you’re Stuart Little sailing competitive entry point in the thousands, the very, very audibly. The only conspicuous change to the rules is that aboard your own tiny boat). And cool stuff is waiting. It’s important to say, however, that a the two-length circle at marks is expanded to four lengths, BY KIMBALL LIVINGSTON overcontrol. Did I mention overcontrol? tinkering spirit can find a development class where a because depth perception is a problem for everyone. Heats Bruce Kirby, designer of the Laser willingness to build it yourself will keep costs low. of 15 boats or less are best. Especially in one-designs, it can erforming my penalty turn for dinghy and the radio-controlled RC Laser, Where is the leading edge in this game? Vacuum-bagged be a challenge to keep track of which of those white boats my second foul in my first race figures that “it takes about three hours of carbon-fiber hulls, canting keels, canting rigs, hydrofoil with a radio-controlled model thumb time to start being right 99 percent multihulls—what do you have in mind? Doug Lord Below left: Modeling legend Bill Bithell and son Larry rig a P boat, I noticed that you can work of the time.” Bob DeBow, dean of model developed a gybe-able spinnaker because “I was watching vintage A at Redd’s Pond in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Below P Nielsen (both below) Peter right: Realism in miniature on a J-class model your way from the front of the fleet to the sailing in San Diego, California, allows people fly RC helicopters upside down with nine-channel back in a hurry. “All thumbs” suddenly that “some people walk backward to keep had a new meaning. things straight between them and the Since I sail big boats—people boats, as boat, but then they go galumphing into my new friends call them—I knew what I trees.” wanted the boat to do. Well, at least to the Thirty years ago, DeBow walked into a extent that I ever knew what I wanted any hobby shop “to buy wood to build a boat to do. But to sail a radio-controlled model of my big boat, and the clerk said, model, it’s important to get this thumb ‘Why not build a model you can sail?’ He thing straight. There’s the left-thumb sent me down here.” Down here was a toggle on the radio transmitter, which purpose-dug model yacht pond in controls sail trim, and there’s the right-thumb toggle, Mission Bay where DeBow found a home away from home. which controls the rudder, and… His story is not unique. When I cracked the lid on model Even after I missed the weather mark (major depth- sailing, a whole world came roaring out. You want perception oopsies, a classic beginner’s blunder), I was still competition? See Appendix E of the Racing Rules and note in the hunt on the downwind leg, with the fleet coming at that model racing is administered by US Sailing and ISAF. me bow-on, sailing toward the spot where I stood on the Want to see a 10-year-old smile? Help the kid launch a little edge of the pond. I wanted to turn to port, and from where boat. Want to see a 70-year-old sprint? Hang out at a pond

I stood, that equaled right. I semiprocessed that thought, where they launch plank-on-frame classic free-sailers, and if Abner Kingman (top and left)

58 Republished by SAIL Magazine February 2005 SAIL SAIL February 2005 Republished by SAIL Magazine 59 CHOOSING A BOAT Soling One-Meter East Coast 12-Meter. Here’s a Most models that get sailed a lot way to scratch the itch for a are also raced. It’s more fun to classic look. In a two-color kit, play games. So the question is hulls cost about $450. Then add what classes are popular close to sails, electronics, and gear. EC12s home? A trip to your local pond are 58 inches long and 22 to 26 will answer that. Don’t be shy; the pounds, from any of several sailors want to talk (but not in the manufacturers. middle of a race). If the club has J-Class U.S. One-Meter. Along with more than one fleet, it’s likely that International One-Meters, these each fleet has a different personality. Take time to have eroded the venerable Marblehead’s standing as the understand the culture, and spend time on the American development platform of choice. Class rules limit LOA, draft, Just as in the “big” world, classics have a strong following. An to pay attention to the water and the mainsail-leech Model Yachting Association Web site, www.amya.org. and sail area, leaving an open envelope that encourages A-class boat (above) gets out in Marblehead, Massachusetts. telltales to answer that. If you want to win, you need to Boats of 36 to 40 inches are popular because they’re owner-designers and home Competition was heavy at the RC Laser North American know that model sails need more twist than full-size sails; Championship last November (center and right) reasonably easy to haul around. If you buy a kit, hide the 5- U.S. building. By the nature of the variation in the wind gradient in the first few feet above minute epoxy where you can’t find One-Meter the beast, costs vary (hint: the water surface is huge. Will Gorgen of Detroit, RC Laser it; that stuff’s not waterproof. Here ORCO sells carbon keel from the competition, now, are we? Michigan, has learned this and oh-so-much more, all are a few representative classes. fins for $100 each). Class If there’s high ground, go there; you can oversee the because of “a silly toy boat that I bought as a way to amuse Soling One-Meter. This is the secretary Jim Linville says, racecourse in lordly fashion. If the banks are flat, keep myself until I could get back to competitive racing.” His most popular class in AMYA today, “I’ve built boats for $200, walking and follow your boat. Then, if you’re doing 35.5-inch Fairwinds can be purchased as a kit with radio with 746 boats registered and I know people who penalty turns, you might get the feeling I had, that I was and servos for $350. Out of the box, it’s as simple as they nationwide (there are more RC have bought boats for standing like a stump in the midst of a stampede as my come, but Gorgen couldn’t stop there, as evidenced by his Lasers out there, but not as AMYA $2,500.” The One-Design fellow competitors charged past me eyeballing puffs and recent three-page article in Model Yachting analyzing rival members). A Soling One-Meter kit One-Meter (ODOM) overlaps and leaving me, quite noticeably, bereaved. Hal Lester Gilbert’s experiments with an offset elliptical vang;

costs $119.95 plus $129.95 for the comes as a kit for $319 Peter Nielsen (top left), Mark Corke (top center and right) McCormick, whom I’ve known for years in our parallel the vang tightens the leech on the run and adds twist on a (recommended) winch servo/radio plus hardware, sails, and people-boat universe, passed with a wry aside—“Same b.s., reach. The boats are small, but the ideas are big. package and incidentals. It’s a electronics. A ready-to-sail just as deep”—and exited yelling “starBOARD!” New Englander Dick Saltonstall has a 50-foot trimaran straightforward build, but plan to boat at the factory price Experienced sailors quickly note the difference between and a nose for the leading edge. He got into models with a spend more than one weekend on goes for $1,350. ODOMs being onboard and not. Is your boat standing upright simple starter boat but quickly moved to development it. are legal as U.S. One-Designs, but they’re heavier than because it’s in a lull or because you’re pinching? You’ll have classes. “I learn more from model boats because I can minimum and are best sailed as an ODOM class. EXPERIMENTAL Unless you’re already skilled and are an obsessive tinkerer, start simple. Some one- DESIGNERS AND MODELS design classes leave a lot One-Design of latitude for set-up and One-Meter The legendary Nathanael Herreshoff was also a model concept RC model. add-ons, and there are six- (ODOM) yachtsman. In the fashion of the day he rowed along—this Modern yacht designers use channel radios for boats was a sport for the physically fit—and, being Herreshoff, he models in towing-tank with lots of controls and was an innovator. He designed the first vane steering for simulations, taking care to skippers with lightning- model boats and then for people boats. Over the years others account for scale effects that fast brain/thumb tried out newfangled ideas in models: winged keels, bulbed are hard to express coordination. keels, swing rigs. Part of the development of the 288-foot mathematically. Sport Note that there are only clipper yacht in build now at Perini-Navi was a proof-of- modelers encounter the same about 30 frequencies issues. There’s a saying that available to sail on. Before you turn on a transmitter in any scale doesn’t sail. Even built-to- fleet, know what channels are open. Stomping on another scale J-Class models allow an Laser designer Bruce Kirby boat’s frequency is yet another beginner’s blunder that extra few inches of draft. When at an RC Laser race everybody is allowed to make, but only once. industrial designer and multiple-class champion Jon Elmaleh approached Bruce

Clockwise from top left: Peter Nielsen; Rich Matt, Model Yachting; Abner Kingman; Rich Matt, Model Yachting (two); Mark CorkeClockwise from top left: Abner Kingman; Rich Matt, Model Yachting Peter Nielsen; Rich Matt, Model Yachting; Kirby with a plan to develop a quarter-model of the Laser hike beside shimmering waters, and banter with like- dinghy, their adaptations included a 16-inch keel with bulb Exploring the outer limits: This experimental trifoiler lifts minded souls. Those who get serious tend to own more (for lack of a movable skipper), a deeper rudder, and three clear of the water with the slightest speed and accelerates options for sail size. Elmaleh figures they could have made a like a rocket. Control can be an issue, as with full-size sisters than one boat in more than one class, and if they’ve got a bug to race on a national level, just try to stop them. faster boat by narrowing the beam, but the shape of the If you’re a beginner, any boat you’re likely to go into will Laser deck was deemed iconic and thus could not be altered. (or red boats, or blue) is yours, and large fleets generate be simple and durable, and just showing up wherever They also stuck with Kirby’s original concept of a strict one- right-of-way mania. people sail should be enough to get you started. At design class. The 2004 RC Laser North American The American Model Yacht Association (AMYA) and its Columbia, Missouri, club members maintain an official Championship was sailed in November near Kirby’s home in quarterly magazine, Model Yachting, tie the fleets together. loaner in their CR 914 class (3-foot models of ACC boats). Noroton, Connecticut. “I enjoy a model race as much as a AMYA has 219 constituent clubs and 2,800 members. There Show an interest, and you’ll be sailing in minutes. You’ll big-boat race,” the designer says. “The need for good tactics, are 24 recognized classes, even more that are actually active, probably be inclined to try to stay out of everybody’s way, a decent start, and clear air are pretty much the same. and there are always more forming. In theory, proliferating which is a good instinct. But you’ll also be surrounded by Courtesy of the Herreshoff Marine Museum; Mark Corke (far right) Watching Elmaleh out there—the guy won this title for the fifth time in a row—you’d think his boat had somebody classes discourage national competition. In reality, most sailors eager to offer tips and tell tales of the dumb things Nathanael Herreshoff, with oars, rows alongside a vane- enthusiasts just want to get together with their friends they used to do when they started. Emphasis on used to do. steered model. He later developed the first big-boat vanes aboard. He never made a false move.” locally. They use the racing as an excuse to breathe fresh air, We’re not going to entirely remove the competitive edge

60 Republished by SAIL Magazine February 2005 SAIL SAIL February 2005 Republished by SAIL Magazine 61 X-Class free-sailors at Spreckels Lake, California: One man, one dug parallel to the prevailing wind to make it freesail boat, one trailer, one stick friendly. Other club members, including Victor Scripi and George Ferrari, have new wooden free-sailers under experiment,” he says. “From models you don’t learn much construction, the older boats are not idle, and club about foils; relative density requires that a model stick to members have revived international free-sail competition at the water more than its parent would. But rigs, yes. If a such hallowed locations as Round Pond at Kensington sheet and a rudder are all you’ve got, it’s nice if the rig Gardens in London. This June they will send a contingent depowers in puffs. Loosen the lowers, tighten the lowers, to Britain to race 36Rs against a group who cleaned their it’s easy to play.” clock two years ago in the U.S. Saltonstall continues, “I can lay up a spar in an evening Stobbe recalls, “For our first Challenge Cup, in 2001, we for a few bucks’ worth of carbon and glue. I don’t need the took Marbleheads to the U.K. But they were too big to expensive fishing rod blanks that some people use; they’re carry comfortably on airplanes. We changed to their 36R too heavy anyway. It doesn’t cost me a lot to experiment, and had to quickly create a U.S. fleet, so here came the and I play around with hull shape because I like to sail in British guys in 2003 with very light hulls and carbon masts heavy air. Models have super-high-aspect-ratio foils, and a lot more experience.” incredible righting moment—these little boats haul.” A 36R (R for “restricted”) must fit inside a box 379 11. Sail area is open. The boat is steered by a vane. Free-sailing = boat + breeze Stobbe, a builder of vanes, says, “The subtlety makes free- Before there was radio control, no one called it free-sailing. sailing more exciting to me than radio control, and there’s Model sailing was popular around New York in the a luck factor that takes the mano a mano out of it. The RC nineteenth century and at such classic venues as Redd’s guys get all wound up, but free-sailors are a peaceful Pond in Marblehead, bunch.” Massachusetts, where the debut As practiced at Spreckels of the 50-inch-long Lake, the art of free-sailing, Marbleheads in 1932 with or without a vane, is to introduced standardized perfectly balance hull and sails. competition in a development Then you tune and trim to class. Today most Marbleheads create a slight imbalance so are radio-controlled, and the that you can set your boat free only fully active free-sail fleet in upwind, and it will sail out into the U.S. is the one at Spreckels the pond—not too far, yet just Lake in Golden Gate Park, far enough—lose balance, tack, where the San Francisco Model and return to a point on the Yacht Club (founded in 1898) shoreline upwind of where you preserves boats and generations started. You’re allowed to of tradition. touch the leeward bow with a RC classes and tricked-out 5-foot, 4-inch stick, once, to power models share Spreckels nose it out again, and as it All photos this page by Abner Kingman Lake, but it is the free-sailers These two X-Class free-sailers now under construction will departs you may touch the who give the place its unique soon join the fleet at the San Francisco Model Yacht Club leeward quarter, once, for a character. Club president Rod course correction. Tosetti says, “I tried RC sailing and got frustrated. I was Races start downwind and finish upwind. An ideal coming away with tight shoulders and asking myself, Do I downwind leg would reach straight down the lake; instead, want a chess game or a dice game?” Jeff Stobbe, who has the helm is set slightly imbalanced—not too much, and not built and sailed full-size cruising boats in his time, is too little—so that the boat will tend to turn to port, working away this winter on his thirty-seventh model boat, returning to the walkway once or twice for course building it plank-on-frame. It will join the club’s venerable correction. You not only have to be a bit obsessed, you have X-Class, admired for luscious lines and long overhangs. to understand that your best efforts will be subject to the Says Stobbe, “Half the pleasure is just seeing something whims of capricious spirits. But little else on the blue beautiful go by.” planet is so arcane, so intricate, so excruciatingly satisfying Of the many purpose-built model-sailing ponds in when things go right. Time stops. Something beautiful America, Spreckels Lake is a rare survivor, with one bank sails by. G

62 Republished by SAIL Magazine February 2005 SAIL